Thursday, June 21, 2012

Chinese name for baby!

Me and the kids

A name is very important. It gives a person a basis for their identity, at least their identity as their parents saw it. In the case of my son, born a month ago, his name came to us during the early stages of the pregnancy, when we were just starting to think about names: Liam Xiong Williams.

We were thinking of another name for his middle name, Ahanu, meaning "He Laughs" in one of the American Indian languages. But then we thought of a Chinese name and it stuck.

Since we decided on a Chinese name for his middle name, I figured I had better come up with a full Chinese name for him. So here it is!

魏廉熊Wèi​ Lián Xióng

My Chinese name is 魏熊 (Wèi​ Xióng), so we have the same surname, Wei, which I was given since it is the first syllable in Williams.

Lián 廉 is an old word meaning honest or incorruptible. It is often used in the Chinese version of the English name "William" (威廉 Wēi​ lián), so since Liam is the second part of William, it makes sense that Lián means Liam!

And Xiong means bear, which I have as my Chinese name because it is my nickname from my Mom, and now Liam is our little bear cub. Michala's grandfather was also nicknamed Bear, and Liam's cousin has the middle name Dov which means bear in Hebrew. So, many levels of significance.

Of course, Liam might decide that he likes Italian or Portugese or Ancient Aramaic, or maybe he will not take to languages in much the same way I don't take to cold cow tongue sandwiches. Who knows? In any case, its the name we came up with for him. We consider it strong, unique and special, just like the kid himself.

About Me

I'm a 30-something writer/editor, currently living in Colorado. Here are some of my adventures, coming from the perspective an American who lived in China, between 1994-1999.
NOTE: If you can't read the characters in the posts, try switching the Encoding (under Page in IE, or View in Firefox) to Unicode.